Truck driver Tim Rutledge is met by his family at the Orlando… (Reinhold Matay, Special…)

January 9, 2014|By Desiree Stennett, Orlando Sentinel

Orlando-based trucker Tim Rutledge might well have frozen to death at an Indiana truck stop had a stroke of bad luck not been answered with good luck.

Hours after he was pinned beneath the wheels of his tractor-trailer in subzero weather, slipping in and out of consciousness, Rutledge managed to summon help when the vibrations from persistent calls finally shook loose the cellphone in his pocket.

"Whatever you do, don't hang up the phone because it might be the last time I have a chance to talk to anybody," Rutledge remembered saying, choking up as he told the story from a wheelchair just after arriving at Orlando International Airport Thursday night.

Rutledge's ordeal began Monday when his truck's brakes failed. The bone-chilling temperatures that paralyzed the Midwest this week had frozen the water that accumulated around his brake pads. Temperatures were about 7 to 10 degrees below zero. With the windchill, it felt colder than 30 below.

Rutledge pulled into a Pilot truck stop in Whiteland, Ind., about 25 miles outside Indianapolis, and crawled under the truck.

With 34 years of experience as a trucker, Rutledge, 53, knew that if he tapped the pads with a hammer, he could break through the layer of ice and keep driving.

Rutledge got one brake pad free, but as he shimmied closer to the second one, he felt the truck start to shift on the unstable snow and ice.

"It sank faster than I could get out," he said Thursday. "I was laying on my right side on the ground with my left side and arm pinned under my body as I was struggling to get out."

Dressed in a hooded coat, light gloves and a thermal stocking cap, Rutledge fought to free himself from under the semi. His cellphone was in his pocket, just out of reach.

Rutledge's gloves became wet from the snow, and his fingers were like blocks of ice.

It was so frigid that the slight sweat that he worked up as he tried to free himself froze his clothing to the ground. And when the wind blowing more than 20 mph made his eyes water, one eye froze shut when he blinked.

He could feel the chill creeping into his lungs.

The severe weather forced highway officials in Indiana to close the roads, so the truck stop was packed with drivers waiting inside their warm cab.

"Trucks were about 10 feet from me," Rutledge said. "I was losing my voice from yelling, and my lungs were beginning to freeze, but all the trucks were running. Nobody could hear me.

"From time to time, I would fall asleep or black out; then I would hear the phone ring, and I thought it was an alarm clock, and I would wake up and realize where I was."

Hundreds of miles south, in her Orlando home, Lisa Rutledge worried.

She and Tim had moved to Orlando from Jacksonvile just before the 2013 holiday season. Lisa said she was used to her husband's leaving home for several days at a time for work but said he always called her every morning.

That's why she became alarmed when 8:30 a.m. rolled around Monday and she still hadn't heard from her husband.

For the next two hours, she called his cellphone more times than she could count. After repeatedly reaching his voice mail, Lisa finally called Jacksonville-based First Coast Express trucking company, where Tim worked.

According to Tim's boss, he never made his usual early-morning call to check in at work, and he hadn't made his delivery.

"I just had this bad feeling," Lisa Rutledge said. "I just really didn't feel good about it because he talks to me every day."

Employees at the trucking company got to work. With Lisa's help, they alternated calling her husband's cellphone and checking his company account to see where he had last stopped to fuel up.

As they were frantically working the phones, and as Tim was starting to shiver so violently that he could barely breathe, his luck changed.

His cellphone buzzed again as another call came through. This time the vibration was enough to jostle the phone from his pocket. It landed in front of him within arm's reach.

"If it would have gone behind me, I wouldn't be talking to you today," Rutledge said. "I would have frozen to death."

Although Rutledge's fingers were frozen stiff, he managed to access his voice-dial feature and call work. At the time he had no idea whom he was speaking to but said where he was and begged for help.

Rutledge's co-worker called the truck stop, and Pilot employees called police and started the search.

Rutledge said he floated in and out of consciousness during the rescue, barely aware of the Indiana emergency crew checking his vital signs while trying to keep him warm.

Emergency workers had to cut him out of his frozen clothing to get him to safety. It took two days in the hospital to get his temperature back to normal, but despite spending about seven hours in the cold, Tim Rutledge said he didn't suffer from frostbite or hypothermia.

The father of four and stepfather of three is still nursing a swollen left side and hoping that he will soon regain feeling in his left hand.

Lisa is just happy to have her husband home.

"I'd rather he never get in a truck like that again," she said. "But it's his livelihood and his decision."